


On The Subject of True Love

by DelightfullyDifficult



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 11:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12556184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelightfullyDifficult/pseuds/DelightfullyDifficult
Summary: Killian's thoughts on the matter of True Love at the end of Episode 5x20, Firebird.  (Written for the Captain Swan Storybook, V2)





	On The Subject of True Love

**Author's Note:**

> This little ficlet was written for the Captain Swan Story Book V2, which you should go read (https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/59451187/complete-cssb). 
> 
> Thank you to the amazing @juliakaze for the cover, especially since I procrastinated and she ended up with very little time to make it. A very special thanks to @icecubelotr44 for her beta skills. Last but not least, to @whimsicallyenchantedrose and @flslp87 for putting together the Storybook full of amazing Captain Swan fics and art, all in once place!

\------------------------------ ------------------------------ 

          Killian has always had a hard time wrapping his mind around the concept of True Love.  The idea that there is someone out there, in the world, whose soul is so compatible with another’s that it is considered a form of magic has always seemed farfetched. 

          A fairytale.

          And yet… he couldn’t keep himself from hoping that one day, he would meet a woman whose spirit would match his own. 

          He had thought he’d found it with Milah.  He didn’t care that she was already another man’s wife at the time they met, or that she was a mother.  All he saw was an amazing woman yearning for an escape and a life of adventure.  He would have been quite content to spend the rest of his days sailing the seas with her at his side, his Pirate Queen.

          However, fate had other plans.  And for three hundred years, Killian thought no more about the ideas of True Love, or even on love in general.

          There was, after all, no love to be found in Neverland.

          When he finally escaped that wretched realm, he threw himself back into his previous life of piracy.  The realm may have changed, kingdoms has risen and fallen in the years he had been away, but there was always a place for men like him on the high seas.

          Until his hunt for revenge on the crocodile brought him into to Regina, and through her, Cora.

          And Emma.

          Beautiful, fiery, stubborn Emma.

          He’d started falling in love with her within moments of her placing a knife at his throat, though he had refused to acknowledge his infatuation for some time.

          Falling in love meant opening himself up to the possibility of loss and he wasn’t keen to go through the pain of that again.

          Not after losing Liam.

          Not after losing Milah.

          However, once again, fate intervened and he couldn’t keep himself away from the princess that wanted nothing to do with him.

          He tried all his usual tactics to get her to respond to him.  Charming smiles, swaggering walks, bonding over shared childhood experiences.  All he walked away with was a bruised ego. 

          So, he changed tactics, concentrated on the small things.  Providing firewood for the camp, opening coconuts with his hook, and using his knowledge of the island to help rescue her son.

          Slowly, things began to change between them.  She talked more, even if her tone was still guarded.  Even so, it was progress.

          Saving her father’s life had been a giant leap forward and the kiss they shared in the jungle had left him gasping for breath. 

          It was after that kiss that he finally admitted to himself that his feelings for Emma were more than just a fancy.  He was head over heels in love with her.

          But True Love?

          Still a fairytale.

          Then he loses her as well.

          Pan’s curse rips them apart, crushing all of his hopes that Emma may feel some of what he does in return.  It is during the year back in the Enchanted Forest that he fantasizes about what may have been had Pan not forced them apart.

          He even tries to kiss back her memories when he finds her in New York, earning him a swift and proper knee to his nuts for his efforts.  He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

          The trip to the past has unexpected consequences, but Killian doesn’t regret a single bit of it.  Finally, Emma’s walls are down far enough for him to scale and he is welcomed into her life.  Though Snow Queens and dire curses make it a tumultuous courtship, he finally gets to be with the woman he loves.

          And then she is gone again, taken by evil magic and manipulated into doing its bidding.

          By then, he’d been convinced that they were True Love.   Maybe all the time spent around her parents, Belle, and the ever hopeful Henry had addled his mind, but he had finally started believing in fairytales.

          So he tries to bring her back, his Emma, with a kiss.

          And it fails.

          His heart breaks.

          Still, he soldiers on.  Uncovers the mystery of Emma’s actions and discovered she had done it all for him. 

          Because of her love for him.

          He repays her by giving into the darkness that has consumed them both.

          She is strong, but he is weak.

          Though they prevail against the Dark Ones in the end, it is too little, too late.

          He pays the ultimate price for his weakness.

          Hades takes no end of pleasure in reminding him that he was just a loathsome pirate that had been unworthy of the princess he had pursued.  That nothing he could have ever done would have made him good enough for her.

          Emma would move on and find a more suitable match.  For the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming deserves a True Love just as wonderful as that which her parent’s share.

          The god of the underworld is infuriated when he learns that Emma and her family have come to his realm to rescue his new favorite whipping post.  His heart may not beat, but it jumps with joy at the news.  Before he remembers the danger his love would be in and his curses his own weakness, again.

          Against the odds, she saves him from Hades.

          Leaving the underworld, though, and returning him to life is a whole other challenge.

          They can’t split her heart; he has been dead for too long. 

          They go after ambrosia, the fruit of the gods and he finally gets his answer.

          He and Emma are True Love.

          There isn’t enough time for them to really absorb that information before they discover the cut down ambrosia tree and all hope of him returning to the mortal world with her vanishes.

          However, a small part of him doesn’t care.

          He is Emma Swan’s True Love and anyone who dares gainsay it can go walk the plank.

          Their goodbye is tearful and full of crushed hopes and dreams.  He begs that she not put her armor back on just because she has lost him.  She implores him to move on and not wait for her.

          He promises, though he isn’t sure how he’ll keep it.

          He’ll worry about it later.

          At the moment, all that matters is that his love return home, to her family, and the world of the living where she belongs. 

          He has always put her needs first and he’ll be damned to Tartarus if a little thing like death is going to change that.

          He is, after all, her True Love.


End file.
